Took half of Friday off and somehow all of my cars are now running correctly.

I have stained my skin with oil but for once everything is up to date. Even got my Cadillacs engine miss fixed when under load and nobody is leaking exhaust gasses anymore. Even the green beast is 99.95% done. just waiting on new hood shocks from rock auto.

Got my new rifle all assembled and ready to rock for Monday. Scope will be in around tomorrow along with all of the mags so I am pretty happy. Even broke sub 4.5lb's. Only by about an ounce but that was the goal.

Saturday the boy and I pulled the broken transmission out of the Monster.

Sunday we installed the "new" one. He's 15 and taking a legit interest in the process. He's listening, being attentive, even bordering on proactive!! Spending wrench time with my son is pretty cool, I hope he remembers it someday and appreciates.

Saturday the boy and I pulled the broken transmission out of the Monster.

Sunday we installed the "new" one. He's 15 and taking a legit interest in the process. He's listening, being attentive, even bordering on proactive!! Spending wrench time with my son is pretty cool, I hope he remembers it someday and appreciates.

My first car was a '57 Volvo 444. Thing was a mess, ran on two cylinders, and maxed out at 43 MPH on the freeway. I was 15 and I remember all the hours my dad spent with me showing me what to do, how to do it, and then letting me get dirty.

I finally got back to my MR2 last night - the holidays and then getting sick had been keeping me away from it. I needed that time in the garage. The kids had been driving me crazy. Even waking up at 1am to the little one crying was easier after getting to work on the car.

We had a combo birthday party for our kids. Our 1 yo daughter didn't have much to say, but our 3 yo son loved the outdoor pirate themed treasure hunt... In December...In Wisconsin... with 6 little boys running around. It was 49°F outside and the ground was dry. An impossible combination.

Better than I expected- I'm rarely a fan of music that is way outside the bounds of the subject time frame, and modern hip-hop and rap is very very far from our revolution. But it is really well done.

But the big bonus to me- seeing so many people get interested in history again. Every once in a while, events or shows happen that raises the interest of the general public of something important- history, engineering, whatever. This is one of those things. Pretty cool to see kids dressed in period clothing being interested in the SUBJECT because of the style of the music.

The Montero has been down since September after the crank bolt backed out. With the Volvo acting up and newfound garage organization i finally got motivated to fix it. I just finished up and took it for a test drive. Now i don't have to drive the miata with no heater to work tomorrow morning when it will be 28°!

It's been taking me 30 minutes. 20 of that the two mile drive to get to the interstate.

On the plus side, I know now that I can match acceleration with an Audi S7 who is also trying to drive away from the zombies. And the active handling/stability control/torque shuffling that the car does feels like sitting inside a nervously happy puppy when accelerating at max effort up an uphill, curving onramp in the rain.

I've been trying to get my hands on the Lego Saturn V for a few months now, but it usually shows as sold out at the Lego online store. Last week, I saw it become available in the morning but I had to deal with a work issue first and within an hour, it was marked as temporarily sold out again.

On a whim, I checked tonight (usually I check a couple times a week in the morning) and got my order in .

I bought a winter beater VW Rabbit two or three months ago, and it is without a doubt the slowest MK1 I have ever owned by several orders of magnitude. Just a total berkeleying turd. Last night on my way home from work it started making some very loud and very awful noises, and by the time I got home it would barely move under it's own power.

This morning I traced those bad noises to the catalytic converter...

Several hours, some colorful language, and one gutted cat later and the car berkeleying RIPS! I should have done this three months ago.

was just considering my PTO situation at work. Considering I get 224 hours a year, if I do not TAKE any PTO for year, I realized I can take almost 6 weeks of vacation straight. As I continue to accumulate PTO even when on vacation, it comes out to something like 5.9 weeks when all is said and done. I know what I am doing next may

I changed the oil and checked the plug in my snow blower tonight. Added a splash of gas to the tank and the thing was running before I finished the first pull. Last use was in March. I dont know what black magic Honda uses in their small engines but it makes me hate my Briggs and Stihl stuff.

I tested my old sears snow blower about a month back and it fired up on the first pull. Fast forward to today and no joy. Plugged it in and after cranking it for a bit with the electric starter it came to life but will only run on full choke. But it did run and get through clearing about seven inches of wet concrete. I am not sure it I am going to fix it or get the John deer that I have been wanting for a while now.

Of my entire IC fleet, the worst (by far) to get started is my Honda powered push mower. Like, remove the air filter and shoot starting fluid in the carb to have a prayer of lighting kind of bad.

But this is a wins thread so: I bought the Monster Miata a couple weeks ago from the mechanic. The owner I had spoken with but not met and he wasn't there the day of the transaction. The owner couldn't find the title and had to apply for a lost one which he would mail to me (I know, super sketchy CL crap that usually would have me running for the hills). Well the deal was too good to pass up and I liked the way the owner sounded so I handed cash to the mechanic for a car that wasn't his.

And this weekend the title arrived in the mail all notarized and everything, it's nice when people don't suck.

Of my entire IC fleet, the worst (by far) to get started is my Honda powered push mower. Like, remove the air filter and shoot starting fluid in the carb to have a prayer of lighting kind of bad.

But this is a wins thread so: I bought the Monster Miata a couple weeks ago from the mechanic. The owner I had spoken with but not met and he wasn't there the day of the transaction. The owner couldn't find the title and had to apply for a lost one which he would mail to me (I know, super sketchy CL crap that usually would have me running for the hills). Well the deal was too good to pass up and I liked the way the owner sounded so I handed cash to the mechanic for a car that wasn't his.

And this weekend the title arrived in the mail all notarized and everything, it's nice when people don't suck.

I got several over one hour blocks of sleep last night for the first time in a while. I love my baby but she neeeeeds to learn how to sleep. If last night is any indication our efforts are finally bearing some fruit.